No Soup For You! (Bad Service.)

One of the most common questions I'm asked on my quest to buy indie/local for 365 days comes in some form of the following:

"If you get bad service somewhere, do you still go there just because it's local?"

The answer to this question is no.  Yes.  Sometimes.  Maybe. Always, if it's the first Tuesday of a blue moon month that falls in the middle of winter.

Look, if you're a business owner, chances are you're working your tail off to take care of me, the customer.  You're spending money to figure out what hours work, what products work, and how to get me to come through the door in the first place.  So if I come in and look around, you or your staff are going to give me unforgettable, personal, and knowledgeable service, right?  I'll walk out of your store or restaurant with a lighter wallet, a satisfied need, and plans for a return visit sometime in the future.

If only this were the case every single time any of us entered an indie business.  

Sometimes, though, we're treated rudely.  We're ignored, slighted, or even insulted.  Sometimes service comes extremely late, if at all-  and the product is sub par.  Maybe the shop is dirty or unkempt; or maybe it just looks like it hasn't been updated since AOL was invented.  There are a million things that can constitute poor service. 

One of the advantages of shopping indie/local is that usually I can talk with the owner of the store and get all of my issues resolved immediately and to my full satisfaction.  On the rare occasion that this has happened, the owners were unaware there was a problem, and apologized profusely and made amends quickly.  In the likely event that this is the outcome of an encounter at that business, I'll absolutely make a second trip.  

Still,  there is always a business owner who truth be told probably shouldn't be in business to begin with.  They have somehow managed to hang on despite their inability to either stock their shop correctly, hire reliable staff, or give even remotely passable customer service.  You know these folks because if you approach them with a problem they become defensive and lash out at you. This doesn't happen just once; the next time you're in there, you receive similar treatment.  

It absolutely blows my mind that this ever- EVER- happens, but it does.  If it's happening to you, it's happening to others, and they're telling others who are telling others...and I have no idea how the shop is still in business. 

 In those cases, I will absolutely not return to their indie/local business for any reason.  Even during this year of attempted exclusive local buying, I'd go look for either a franchise that's locally owned, or another community that would have an option.  If there wasn't one of those, I'd be hauling tail to the nearest chain that carried the item I needed.  (Yes, I'd confess my chainsgression on here, without identifying the original business owner. )  

We all work hard for our money, and we deserve to be treated well when we spend it.  In my experience, indie/local New Albany businesses have been top notch in getting me the items I've requested or needed, and I've had few bad service experiences.  The few I've had may not even notice that they haven't seen me in awhile.  One day, they may realize they haven't seen much of anyone for awhile...and hopefully, they'll step up and do what they should have done all along. 

The First Fall: Greenery

A couple of months ago, I promised that I would fail.

I wasn't sure when, I wasn't sure for what item...but, I knew I'd fail- and I even mentioned that when I did, it would be part of the ongoing conversation.

All has been going well, really.  I've adjusted into a routine of planning what I buy, and where I buy it, and buying indie/local has become second nature.  I can tell you where to get just about everything, or a workable substitute.

I found this item about a month ago at Rainbow Blossom, after having a heck of a craving for it.  After not seeing it at Save A Lot, I was thrilled that I'd found a source that would work for me, since this particular item is not in season until late winter/spring, so it's not available at the Farmer's Market right now.

But last week, I stopped at Rainbow Blossom, and the clerk politely told me they were out.  Their shipment comes in on weekends, and I should stop by on Saturday.  Due to the nature of life, kids, sicknesses, and other perils of motherhood and familydom, I couldn't stop by until today, Monday.

They were out already.  On top of that, they had no chicken, which was the other item I was looking for.

This is going to be really, really anticlimactic.  You're going to roll your eyes and say, "REALLY???"

What drove me to Kroger tonight was fresh baby spinach.

Yes, the green stuff.  I love a good spinach salad with almonds, mushrooms, onions, fruit, feta, and on some days, chicken.

The kids eat 1.5 vegetables:  Both eat broccoli by the pound, and my 8 year old girl also loves fresh spinach.  We had discussed the meal on our way to Rainbow Blossom, and she had her heart set on spinach salad topped with chicken.  I think she was more miffed than I was at the lack of spinach.

She informed me that we would pass Kroger on the way home, and by gosh, they have spinach- and she could tell me exactly where it was.  My other option was to drive another 15-20 minutes to Thriftway in Georgetown to see if they had it. We were already on the other side of cross country practice and coasting towards dinner time...so, I caved.

I bought spinach and their free range chicken breasts, as well as another salad mix.

For some reason, Save A Lot doesn't carry anything but iceburg mixes or iceburg heads, and that's just not a satisfying salad.

I never thought that spinach would be the first fail.  It's getting its own column on the excel spreadsheet- and at the end of the year, I hope we can count on one hand the times I fail.  It really irks me.

As they say, that's the way the feta crumbles.

What Will We Tell The Children?

Recently, yet another study has emerged that shows the impact on a local economy of buying at an indie, local business is roughly four times the impact of shopping at a box store- depending on what type of establishment.  One of the more interesting things to come from this study was the fact that local retailers return an average of 52% of their revenues back into the local economy, while chain retailers only return about 14%.  Restaurants are even more remarkable.  If you go out for date night to an indie local restaurant, they'll recirculate approximately 79% back into your local economy, while chains average around 30%.

So the above paragraph is impressive, yes?  I mean, it shows that you, resident of Yourtown, Wherever can really and truly have an impact on your town and its quality of life by choosing wisely where you spend your money.  Heck, it got me so excited I went out to my favorite New Albany running store and clad my family in the best running shoes for their foot types.  Hey, everyone DID need new shoes, and though we're on a tight budget, we are overall spending much less money than pre July 1, 2012.

Yeah, I'm overly proud of these shoes...

But no matter how much this makes sense to me, and how much I preach the value of buying local and indie (always with the caveat that if somewhere has an inferior product or crappy customer service, you do NOT have to patronize them solely because they're local), have you ever tried to explain this to an almost 9 year old and a 6 year old?

I've tried, and that went over like medium rare filet mignon at a vegan convention.

Bear in mind, my strategy has been that we try to find a local option first and branch out from there.  So, for example, if we wanted pizza, we'd try an indie local pizza joint.  If there wasn't one, we'd buy a locally owned franchise pizza joint.  But, we have a ton of eateries that are both in New Albany;  so, I've not had to make this decision.

REAL mozzarella.  

At least thrice weekly, and sometimes more, I'm having this conversation:

Kids:  Mommy, we want Subway.
Me:  Subway's not local.
Kids:  So?
Me:  Well, more of the money we spend goes out of the area, rather than helping our fellow community members by supporting them and their businesses.
Kids:  ...
Kids: ...
Kids: ...Little Caesar's?
Me:  Not local.
Kids:  McDonald's?
Me:  Not local.
Kids:  WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US???
Me:  FINE.  Hing Wang it is.

Hing Wang is one local eatery that all four members of the family- and presumably also the dog- can agree on, mostly because they have noodles and dumplings.  They're seeing a spike in business from our house on nights that we need a quick dinner, despite warnings to the kids that they'll turn into noodles if we eat it any more often.

But in all seriousness, trying to explain what the New Albany 365 experiment is and why we're doing it to two elementary school aged children has proven to be one of my biggest challenges.  Of course, when they go to Grandma and Grandpa's, all bets are off and I'm pretty sure they take a tour from Burger King to Taco  Bell to WalMart to Toys R Us...but most of the time, they're living this with me, and they are fighting it.

I can only hope that as they get older, they're able to better understand what I did, and why I did it, and though they may not embrace it wholly, if I've caused their buying as teens and adults to shift even 20%, I've had a positive effect on whatever communities they decide to call home.  That's a better reward than some imitation cheese pizza that filled a temporary need because it was cheap and readily available.

Right?

The Long Awaited, Much Anticipated Indy Local Tour Recap

Remember earlier this month when I went to Indy, and had the indie Indy experience?

No?

You're right, it was weeks ago.  All of my focus on local and indie buying has consumed my time, and I didn't get the opportunity to recap the adventures I had on Thursday, August 9th with my dear friend Michelle.  That's actually her real name, too, but mostly because I can't think of any clever nickname at the moment.

After training on 8/9 (where I learned a ton and was completely re energized, and I don't say that for the upper ups who may or may not be reading), Michelle picked me up at the fabulous Canterbury hotel and we took off for the Indy Reads Bookstore.  It's a unique concept- a community bookstore that takes donated books and sells them at fantastic prices- where all proceeds benefit a literacy program who's goal is to have 100% of Indianapolis able to read.  I walked out with 5 books for about $12 and felt like I'd stolen from them somehow.

So what comes directly after great books?  Great Cajun, of course!  Off we went to Yat's, a must visit also on the Mass Avenue corridor.  I'm no culinary writer, so I'm not even going to try to give description to the mouthwatering cheese crawfish etoufee that could ever possibly exist- but I ate every bit of it, and wanted more.  Yat's is the kind of joint where I feel right at home, because there's simply no formality.  We sat outside and discussed the state of the world in general, and probably would have solved all current crises had the draw of a good beer not interrupted.  

Setting off from Yat's, we hit a lovely hole called Chatham Tap.  GREAT beer selection, and my most dedicated tour guide had even checked to see if some local beer was on tap so that I could further my mission.

We sat right at the corner of the bar and shared a nice, hoppy Sunk King brew (can't remember which one!) and attempted to pick back up on the state of the world.  We veered off into something totally not related...actually, I'm pretty sure we ricocheted from family to work to politics to back to the world and were even closer to solving it all when Michelle brought up frozen yogurt.  

You're tracking this, right?  Books, Cajun, beer, and now yogurt.

We made our way to a place called YoguLatte which is a cute play on words with yogurt and latte...where you create a monstrosity from all kinds of different flavors or only one with a whole bunch of toppings thrown in for good measure, and then they weigh it and charge you accordingly.  What they didn't count on was Tour Guide Michelle, who assured me that the best course of action was to sample each one to figure out which one my palate liked best.  My palate should actually never touch yogurt, frozen or not, because I'm allergic to milk.  But, I'm one of THOSE type of allergics- I'll eat it anyway and then complain later from the effects.  

That's me and yogurt sample number seven.

If you're any good at math, you can see that there are four separate units that dispense frozen yogurt, each with three flavors.  Four times three is twelve- and subtract a few flavors that didn't sound good, and I sampled 8 different yogurts before deciding on cake batter.  It was a beautiful dessert worthy of world problem solvers...who decided to end the night with another beer.

After leaving the yogurt place, we closed the night at Metro Night Club upstairs, where we declared that unless we achieved world domination, it was doomed and we may as well have another beer.  We overheard some conversations that were far more interesting than ours in nature and abandoned world domination for more laughs and deep insights, which are often the same thing anyway.

While this post has been a long time coming, I promised The Best Tour Guide Ever Michelle that she'd feature on the blog as soon as I planted myself on the couch long enough to compose it...so here you go, Ms. M.  I had a WONDERFUL time, and can't wait to do it again one day soon.  I'm lucky to have friends that embrace my quirks...especially the quirks that last 365 days and include all local, all the time. 

Next up for the blog:  the current struggles and things I can't find, and the kids' eyerolls.

School Days...And The Local Suppliers

Two weeks ago, I got the list.  Lists plural, because they were two:  one for each kid.

It seemed awfully early for school supply shopping- and there's a reason for that.  Our school district is slowly transitioning to a balanced calendar year that will eventually have only a six week summer break and several two week breaks throughout the school year.  Apparently, the amount of days attended are the same as before, when I was growing up, but the spacing is different. Where we used to go back to school at the end of August or beginning of September, the start date this year was August 6th.

Off I went, armed with my lists, determined to find everything I'd need for both kids in both grades, and to find it at either an independent or local venue.  Anyone who's done this before knows that you have eleventy seven of each item to buy:  multiple pencils, notebooks, folders, composition notebooks, eraser caps, and all sorts of other various needs and wants (in multiples of ten), presumably to balance out the children who aren't able to or won't get school supplies.  I take no issue with this at all from a financial standpoint.  I want every kid to have what he or she is going to need to succeed.

However, let's look at the reality of our independent businesses.  Quite simply, they just can't keep the kind of stock in hand to support that kind of demand.

My first stop was our local, indie parent teacher supply store...which was more geared towards the teachers and not the parents.  Mind you, I don't expect the vast quantity of supplies that say, WalMart or Target would carry;  but, I was slightly disappointed to find at most three or four of each kind of notebook, and absolutely no loose leaf paper.  None.  But, hey, ok, maybe their supplies were running a bit late- I'll give them that, and I'd go back there because they have so much darn FUN stuff.

I got somewhere around 50%-60% of my lists covered there.

You know the parts in cartoons where people get the light bulb over their head?  I had that happen as I was walking out of the parent teacher store.  I was determined that Ben Franklin would have further supplies.

Ben Franklin is an interesting locally owned business.  At one time, they were a franchise; but a bit of an odd one in that some of their locations were and are craft stores, while others were five and dimes, and even pharmacies.  The parent company that owned the franchise went bankrupt in 1997, which left another company to pick up the pieces, but stores retained local ownership.  After talking with the owner here, I found out that they're wholly independent.

At Ben Franklin, I got the random idea of getting blank pencil boxes and letting the kids choose their own scrapbook supplies to decorate them as they wanted.  I rarely have a flash of brilliance, so I'm going to have to call this one out as genius.  They loved the idea, and it channeled their inner creative spirit...or something.

Anyway, I visited two or three independent drug stores and an independent grocer about fifteen minutes away, and secured all but two composition books and 30 pencils.  All in all, it was a win.

Believe it or not, I spent less than in past years- and I think it all comes down to the fact that there is not the same opportunity to impulse buy.  I said early and often that I'm a huge impulse buyer (as most of us are)- so this was a nice surprise, despite the epic quest of securing all items.

The stuff I couldn't find I talked with the teachers and explained my mission, and that as all of the places restocked I'd hit them again throughout the year to bring in the missing items.  Both were supportive and enthusiastic, and had no problem with that.

I'm extremely proud of the fact that I still haven't had to break the rules yet, though I know the day is coming.    I do find myself wondering what that item will be.

Hotel Update: Still Keepin' It Indie in Indy!

Check it out!  Turns out, there IS an indie option next week, within walking distance of the training I'm attending.  I have to say, the Canterbury Hotel looks way cooler than the Embassy Suites!

The World of B&Bs (...and a boss that humors me).

Last week, I traveled for work to teach a social media seminar for one of our outlying counties for the ISBDC .


I'm lucky to work for a boss that not only humors me, but tries to help me along in my 365 mission.  So, when I asked to please get accommodations that weren't a hotel chain, she obliged by booking me a room at  the Herman Leive House in Aurora, IN.

I'm going to admit something.


In my family vacations and all of the adventures we had, we never stayed at a bed and breakfast.  We stayed at plenty of motels and independent inns, but never in my memory a true B&B.  I never really thought about why, until I arrived at the Herman Leive House. There's a prominent sign that states that it's not equipped for children.   As it turns out, it's a renovated house from the 19th Century Greek Revival style (Admittedly, I have no idea what that means)  that was originally owned by the master brewer for the local Crescent Brewery- a total win in my book.  I was somewhat dismayed not to be haunted by a beer wielding spectre, but that's probably for the best anyway, because the current owner and caretaker doesn't allow alcohol on the premises.  


It was a fantastic experience.  All local hotel chains were $100+ for the night- and I got a gorgeous time period decorated room with some really neat historical reading material, a totally comfy bed, and a bathroom that didn't look like thousands had been through the doors for only $65.  In the middle of the night, when I got thirsty, I wandered down to the kitchen to find a nice, cold bottled water and a tray of brownies.  (I was fairly convinced it was the best dream ever, until I woke up with crumbs on my face.)  I loved my stay, and will be back again when I'm in the area.


I can't stress enough how important it is that I have a boss that is attempting to help me along in my goal, even when it's not necessarily convenient for the team.  On more than one occasion, our staff meetings have taken place at a verified local restaurant in Madison, IN, or New Albany, IN- simply because she's trying to help me succeed.  Then again, maybe that's the whole point.  Even if it's just to help an employee, there's still an effort being made, awareness being generated, and money being spent in independent/local venues.  


But the first break from local is upcoming, on August 7-9.  I will be travelling to Indianapolis for training, and staying downtown.  Our 'home office' has secured reservations at the Embassy Suites- and while I'm comfortable discussing this with my direct boss, I'm not necessarily ready to insist at the state level on my accommodations.  I double checked to see if the Embassy Suites was owned by a local management company;  but, it is not.  It is a corporate Hilton hotel.  


I knew starting out that this was to be a yearlong conversation with ups and downs- and this brings into focus   another issue.  There are no independent walkable downtown hotels...they're all corporately owned.  


Ah well.  This means I'll have to patronize doubly the local restaurants and craft breweries.  As the old children's tale goes- 'Don't throw me into the briar patch, whatever you do.'


P.S.  I'll have July totals and communities impacted within a week or two.